1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to the storage and management of information objects including multi-media data. More specifically, the present invention provides for a system which allows information objects to be stored generically and not in their final presentation version--that which the end user interacts with.
2. Related Materials and Definitions
This application is related to the following applications which are hereby incorporated by reference:
UNIVERSAL TAG IDENTIFIER ARCHITECTURE (application Ser. No. 07/963,885, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,414,841), PA0 METHOD FOR GENERATING CONNECTIONS BETWEEN OBJECTS IN A COMPUTER NETWORK (Grinding) (application Ser. No. 08,262,999), PA0 FACILITY FOR THE INTELLIGENT SELECTION OF INFORMATION OBJECTS (PERSONA) (application Ser. No. 08/262,834), PA0 METHOD FOR ASSOCIATION OF HETEROGENEOUS INFORMATION (application Ser. No. 08/262,838), PA0 FACILITY FOR THE STORAGE AND MANAGEMENT OF CONNECTIONS (CONNECTION SERVER) (application Ser. No. 08/267,022), PA0 METHOD FOR STORING AND RETRIEVING HETEROGENEOUS CLASSIFICATION SYSTEMS (application Ser. No. 08/263,379), PA0 Tags: Tags are globally unique identifiers. Tags are sequentially numbered identifiers identifying data objects (i.e. video, text, audio, observations, opinions, etc. ) PA0 Phenomena: The logical structure of the system begins with a unit of human perception, the "phenomena". In the universe of a computer system, "Phenomena" is defined as a representation of phenomena which exist in the universe of human experience. Phenomena can be ideas, written matter, video, computer data, etc. Examples include viewing a computer file using a word processor, watching a digital video clip or listening to a digital audio segment. PA0 Connections: That which gathers (or links) Phenomena into interrelated collections. Connections are that which lead the user from one Phenomena to another Phenomena. Connections are not simply a road-map from a Phenomena to all other Phenomena. More specifically, Connections represent an observation of related Phenomena made by human or by computer observers. PA0 Connection Attributes: In the logical structure of the system, "Connection Attributes" allow the entire network of Phenomena and Connections to become usable to each user of the system. Connection Attributes store the rationale behind each connection. In fairly generic terms, Connection Attributes describe the Who, What, Where, When and Why of a particular observation. PA0 Noumena: The concept of the present invention, Noumena are that which lie beyond the realm of human perception. In computer-based systems, such as the instant invention, they are the computer stored data, examples are "computer files" or "datasets". When these computer files, the Noumena, are observed in their "raw" form, they do not resemble pictures, sounds, nor words. These Noumena resemble a series of bits, bytes, or numbers. These computer files must be manipulated by computer programs, "Phenominated", to become as they appear to the observer. In the present system, Noumena are all of the generic format computer files needed to produce a representation of a Phenomena. This includes the computer data files as well as the computer program files. PA0 Grinding: Grinding is a systematic, computer-based observation of Phenomena. This is typically done with a "narrow view". The programs are usually looking for well defined criteria. When Phenomena are observed by the computer programs, the programs make Connections between the observed Phenomena and other Phenomena known by the programs. In effect, acting as a human observer would when viewing a Phenomena and manually Connection it to other Phenomena. PA0 Persona: to determine the value of information based on each user's subjective preferences. PA0 Capture: During knowledge capture, the human or computer observer Connects two Phenomena and provides the rationale for the Connection by supplying Connection Attributes. The user can also Connect a new Phenomena to previously existing Phenomena. PA0 Retrieve: During knowledge retrieval, an observer navigates from Phenomena to Phenomena via Connections. Knowledge is delivered by experiencing the reconstituted Phenomena. Which knowledge is delivered is controlled by the Connections and the assessment of the Connection Attributes, preferably under the auspices of a Persona. PA0 Prior Art PA0 Objects of the Invention
The following definitions may be helpful to the understanding of the terminology as cited throughout the above related materials.
This terminology may be used throughout the background, specification and claims of the present invention:
The present invention supports the overall system of copending application "FACILITY FOR THE ASSOCIATION OF HETEROGENEOUS OBJECTS". It supports the TAG ARCHITECTURE, CONNECTION SERVER, GRINDING and the design and infrastructure of the overall system, but is not limited thereto.
The term "Noumena" could be read "object", and the term "Connection" could be read "link" in this disclosure. The distinction between Noumena and Phenomena is made to distinguish between objects as experienced by users (Phenomena) and objects as they are actually stored (Noumena).
In the prior art, typically a data object is stored in the form of which it came. An audio recording would be stored as a series of tone generations, a video as a series of pixels (assuming a digitized signal) and text in the format of its originating word processor. In addition, storage and accessing of a data object typically requires a complex process of data object locator schemes in conjunction with associated recognition of data file directory structures. The present invention provides for storage and management of computerized data sources as a generic series of data which when retrieved is filtered through the appropriate output formatter (i.e. tone generator). The data objects are accessed using a unique identifier to directly access the data regardless of storage format or location (i.e. locally or remotely across networks).
It is an object of the present invention to store data objects as efficiently as possible.
It is also an object of the present invention to store a generic form of data objects.
It is also an object of the present invention to access stored data objects as quickly as possible.
It is also an object of the present invention to reduce duplicate storage of multiple versions of data objects.
It is also an object of the present invention to allow for simplified access to data objects regardless of location.
It is also an object of the present invention to recreate, upon a stored data object access request, the original format of the stored data object based on stored descriptive information.